The Mammoth Book Of series can be hit or miss, but this collection is amazing so far, amazing. And one of the best things about anthologies is you can read a few stories each day and get back to the real life things you need to do.:) The problem with this one, though, is that the stories are all so good, reading the collection is like eating a bag of chips and trying to stop at just one.

<3 So many great tales here, but "Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra" by Vandana Singh is absolutely stunning! <3

You can read one of the stories from The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women right here:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100329/somadeva-f.shtml



Also worth checking out is Martini Shot by George Pelecanos:

http://www.washingtonian.com/bookreviews/fiction/george-pelecanos-attempts-a-new-literary-direction-in-the-martini-shot.php

 

 

You can feel pretty far from normal when very few of your friends, if any, are gay and your family is extremely homophobic...

snippets from a book on the history of lesbian pulp fiction...Katherine V. Forrest

  

There are some days where the only way I get through them is by pure daydreaming...get it all out of my system and move on.

I have a fight (disagreement, really, since it does more good to just listen than to argue back) with my parents, for instance, and I imagine the way I wanted my life to turn out, not the way it is.

It's so funny, in a way, because when I was younger, I distinctly remember being in the Walden Books at Security Square Mall and seeing a book about Fire Island with two men on the front. I remember flipping the book over and the word "gay" jumping out at me. When we got home that night I asked my mom about the word.

She didn't flinch or make a face or anything like that. She went on to tell me that gay people were just people who were "lost and confused," but that we should never hate or judge them. I remember that like it was just yesterday, even though it was the early 80s.

Now, now, the word "gay" (or "lesbian") brings out nothing but fire and brimstone in my mother's voice. I'm not saying what she told me when I was younger was right, but it was certainly kinder than she feels now and no matter how hard I've tried to explain, she just won't (or can't) believe that I am the very thing she once said shouldn't be judged or hated.

I've mentioned (ad nauseam, I know, and I keep hoping to get past that) that this is a huge issue between my parents and me, one that I know will never be resolved and I've only been able to accept at all because I've never met anyone who could feel the same.

But on days when it gets really hard, I go to my happy place, which is sometimes Hawaii (goodbye, cold weather!), but is more often somewhere big and more likely to swallow me up whole...like New York City. I'm sure The Big Apple has its share of homophobia, but I feel like being in love and together with another woman wouldn't be the heartache it would in my real life.

A few weeks ago something happened that, due to a small series of very odd coincidences and a silly desire for it to be so, almost made me believe something ludicrously wonderful. I say "almost" because I actually don't believe in coincidences (the phrase "there are no coincidences" drives me up the wall) and because in this certain situation I just knew it would have been astronomically impossible to be...well, never mind that. I'd rather not go into what the situation was...

I just want to share this awesome article I found online. I discovered it when I typed "there are coincidences" in Google. And, yes, tonight, I have way too much time on my hands. But it's (as it is in a large part of the country right now) extremely cold so....bundled up under lots of covers, with books, a laptop and "I Love Lucy" episodes is the only way to be right now if I don't want to run my heat over 65 degrees.

Anyway, below is the article:

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/6078/features/who-says-there-are-no-coincidences/

There are moments, especially in the middle of the night, when I'm tempted to jump back on my computer and take down a lot of my posts here, especially the ones that are too personal or possibly controversial...and sometimes, I do.

Other times, though, I realize that because I'm posting anonymously I can be completely honest, something I don't always have a chance to do in real life , were being completely uninhibited is not always an option. I can't apologize for something I feel, though I never want to be mean or out of line on purpose. I've spent so many years wanting to be normal, trying to be normal (and failing), that now a small part of me almost wants to rebel.

Like today, it took all my self-control not to tell the person I like just how much she means to me. Only two things helped: that I would never want her to be uncomfortable and I'm finally starting to relax more around her and not feel sad.

If you've tried, really tried, to stop liking someone and you can't...well, then maybe the only thing you can do about it all is just be more mature and move on from a place of crushing to a place of admiring...as in having a good role model admiring...because, truly, this person is one of the most composed, unique, caring and sound women to be around.

I love this book. It has helped me with a lot of things "around the house" and I've renewed it twice, returned it, then checked it out again, that's how much I love it...I just wanted to share a few pages from it. The pages came out oddly because every time I tried to photograph one the book flopped off my computer and onto the floor so that I tried holding the book down with one elbow while taking a picture. Okay, that's more than you need to know...anyway, this book is truly helpful!! :)